Salmon Fishing. 99 



To shew how little I regard the old stereotyped 

 patterns of flies, there are very few of the 

 hundreds I have fabricated that I could pro- 

 nounce twin brothers, or sisters. I remember 

 falling in with a stranger on the banks of the 

 Dovey, in North Wales, who was so abject a 

 slave to pattern-flies, that he would scarcely 

 credit the fact that the two fish I had lately 

 landed had been seduced to their ruin by one 

 of my own fancy. How I discovered this, was 

 from a most doleful complaint that fell from his 

 lips somewhat to the following effect : "Bother 

 it ! here have I been trying the Butcher, the 

 Parson, the Goldfinch, and all the rest of them, 

 and not a fin have I set eyes upon the whole 

 day. And yet with that nondescript affair of 

 yours you have managed to lick the whole lot 

 of them." 



When he looked through my book, and broke 

 out into sundry quaint remarks, as fly after fly 

 caught his notice ; what with his broad Lanca- 

 shire dialect, and blunt expression of opinion, I 



